


Fixing What's Broken

by clarityhiding



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Space, Fixing/Repairing Things, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Past Character Death, Recovery, Running Away, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26551276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding
Summary: After Lian, Roy runs away to space.
Relationships: Roy Harper & Jason Todd
Kudos: 5





	Fixing What's Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe one of these days I'll get all the trope mash-ups I wrote moved from Tumblr to AO3 but today is not that day. 
> 
> utazawa asked: "22. Space AU and 100. Accidentally Saving the Day with JayRoy please. :)" Can be read as platonic or romantic, your choice.

After Lian, Roy runs away to space. Ollie says he’s avoiding (true), Dick says he’s hurting (also true), Donna says he’s lost (he’ll… get back to that one). All he knows is his little girl is gone and now there’s a big, gaping hole in his chest, something that can never be filled. He’s left incomplete and aching, constantly turning to explain something to a daughter who will never, ever be there again.

Space makes it both easier and harder. Easier because everything is new, different, with nothing and no one to remind him of what he’s lost. Harder because he’s rattling around in the ship all on his own, with no one to distract him from his own thoughts.

He takes on odd jobs, fixing broken things when he comes across them, helping scared people when he finds them, righting wrongs when injustice rears its ugly head, as it always does. The more people are different, the more they’re the same, no matter their size, shape, color, or number of limbs.

In between, he tinkers. Picks up bits of space flotsam and works them over, fixing it when he can, combining it with other things when he can’t, making something entirely new and different. Sometimes, it’s even something useful, and he upgrades his arm, making it smoother, sleeker, more responsive. Closer to what he lost and at the same time so much more.

The distractions help for a time, all the fixing, helping, saving, tinkering, and then the empty space in his chest throbs and he’s reminded once more of what he lost. The friends he left behind hail him when they can, checking up, asking when he’s coming home. He always tells them he doesn’t know, and it’s a lie each time he says it. He can never go home, because home simply doesn’t exist anymore. Not without Lian.

On one planet, he helps to fix the mass processor of a university, wandering into the dark places deep in the bowels of the place, a catacomb of old structures, built over and forgotten with time except as places to be feared. There’s nothing left for Roy to fear now, he’s already had the worst happen to him, so he doesn’t think twice of going deeper and further than all the others who were hired but turned back before they could finish the job. Warnings of lurking dangers such as forgotten monsters, unstable structure, creeping vapors don’t worry him any more.

He finds the roots of the processor at long last, buried in what may have been a lab of some sort in another lifetime. It’s simple work to repair the problem, doesn’t take much more effort to upgrade the machinery to the point where a similar malfunction is unlikely to happen again. He’s on his way out when he sees the pile of discarded junk mouldering in the corner of the room.

The android is worn and tired-looking, missing an eye and the lower half of one leg. It’s probably old enough that it’s not worth bothering with—decades out of date, which may as well be centuries when it comes to this sort of tech. Still, Roy straps it to his back and hauls it out, tries to demand it as payment for services rendered, though the stuffy academics topside insist he take the promised credits as well.

It takes a month of work to repair the cosmetic damage, another month to get the damned thing to turn on, and nearly three months of careful coding and soldering before the head turns in his direction and speaks. “Hey. I’m Jason.” The voice is natural and rich, a slight accent to it that almost feels familiar, though Roy can’t place it. There’s nothing mechanical about it—really, it sounds more human than anything he’s heard outside of a hail in far too long.

“Roy,” he says, holding out a hand automatically. Surprisingly, the android reaches out as well, takes Roy’s hand and shakes it. And then Jason smiles with a sort of softness that makes Roy’s heart ache in a pleasant sort of way it hasn’t in years.

If Donna was right and Roy really has been lost all these years, then somehow, impossibly, Jason’s managed to find him.

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a tumblr!](http://themandylion.tumblr.com/) Come visit if you want ridiculous AU headcanons, rants about the English language (and/or educational publishing), history fangirling, adorable baby bats, and veeeeery occasional fanart. Also, because I am an actual human being with opinions of my own, sometimes I post or reblog things that reflect those opinions. If you can't handle the idea of someone existing in the universe and possessing opinions which differ from your own, you should not click that link.


End file.
